Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

its cold, wet embrace
.
    “So what now?” I finally asked. “Because Mab’s dead. I made sure of that. And if I’m not already, then I’m probably on my way to join her—and you.”
    The old man snorted. “What now? That’s up to you, Gin. Just like it always has been.”
    “So I can go back then? Back to being… alive? Or whatever?”
    The old man stared at me with his bright green eyes. “You’re Gin Blanco, Genevieve Snow, and the Spider all rolled into one. You can do whatever you want to, sweetheart.”
    I bit my lip and looked away. “I don’t want to lose you again, Fletcher. I don’t want to leave you behind. Especially since it’s my fault that you died in the first place. My fault that Alexis James tortured you to death.”
    A hundred agonizing emotions tightened my throat, but for once, I forced out the words. “I—I failed you that night.”
    “And I failed you when I didn’t stop Mab from killing your mother and older sister,” the old man snapped right back at me. “We all make mistakes, Gin, even the best of us. I like to think that it all evens out in the end. Remember that, and you’ll be fine.”
    “But what should I do?”
    “I can’t tell you that,” Fletcher said. “But it seems to me like there are a lot of people out there who care about you. It would be a shame to up and die on them, especially when they’re working so hard to try to save your life.”
    I thought about everything that I’d gone through in the last few months. Grieving over Fletcher’s death, my messy affair with Donovan Caine, taking on bad guy after bad guy, finding Bria, connecting with her, and now with Owen too, and all the things I felt for him. Fletcher was right. I’d worked too damn hard to get through all of that, to build a real life for myself, to give it up now
.
    Still, I got to my feet with a heavy heart. I should have headed for the door, but I lingered at the counter. I breathed in, and the old man’s scent filled my nose—sugar, spice, and vinegar all mixed together, with just a hint of chicory coffee. The caffeine fumes comforted me the way they always did
.
    “Well, then, I guess this is good-bye.”
    Fletcher gave me a sly smile. “For now.”
    I nodded, turned, and walked over to the front door. For a moment, my hand hovered over the doorknob, and I wondered once more if this was the right thing to do. It would be easy to stay here with Fletcher—so easy. But like the old man
had said before, I was Gin Blanco, Genevieve Snow, and the Spider
. Easy
wasn’t in my vocabulary. It never had been
.
    I twisted the knob, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold. But I wasn’t ready to go—not yet. I turned and stared back through the storefront windows, looking at the old man
.
    Our gazes met and held through the glass. Green on gray. Our love and respect for each other glowing as bright as the neon pig sign above the door
.
    Fletcher raised his hand to me in a silent wave, which I returned. Then the snow swirled between us once more, and he was gone
.

I shuddered in a breath and found myself staring into a pair of bright green eyes—eyes that were pinched tight with worry and fear.
    “Fletcher?” I mumbled, my voice hoarse and raspy and broken. “Fletcher?”
    I wheezed in another breath and wished that I hadn’t. Pain flooded my body, snapping me out of whatever dream or limbo I’d been in. I was dimly aware of the agony coursing through my veins, of the sheer misery surging through me with every slow, erratic beat of my singed heart. But at the same time, I felt completely disconnected from myself, as though I were standing over my own body, watching my limbs twitch and writhe with pain with a dispassionate eye. I imagined the sensation probably had something to do with the fact that all of my nerve endings, hell, all my skin, had been seared off by Mab’s elemental Fire.
    But I’d gotten the bitch. I’d finally gotten
her
. I thought that I smiled then. I certainly wanted to, even as the blackness crept up on me again.
    “No, it’s Finn,” my foster brother’s familiar voice said. “Gin? Stay with me, Gin!”
    Some indistinct murmurs sounded, and footsteps scuffled in the snow. But I didn’t see anyone because my eyes were sliding shut again.
    “She’s alive!” Finn screamed. “Get Jo-Jo over here! Now!”
    The world went black once more.
    The next time I woke up, I felt like I was being stabbed with a hundred thousand red-hot needles—all at